The Marriage of Maymunah

Shaykh Yasir Qadhi explains:

❧A WIDOW WITHOUT A GUARDIAN

Maymūnah bint al-Ḥārith, widowed after her husband Abū Ruhm ibn ʿAbd al-ʿUzzā's death and left with no one to look after her in Mecca, was the sister of Umm al-Faḍl, al-ʿAbbās's wife. Wanting nothing to do with continued life among the pagans of Quraysh, she asked her sister to help find her a husband; al-ʿAbbās took up the matter directly with the Prophet ﷺ, acting as her walī and speaking warmly of her, and the Prophet ﷺ agreed to the marriage during his three days in Mecca. She would become his final wife, and, decades later, the last of his wives to die.

❧A DISPUTED DETAIL OF IḤRĀM

An authentic report from Ibn ʿAbbās, Maymūnah's nephew, states that the Prophet ﷺ married her while in the state of iḥrām, a claim that would touch a genuine point of fiqh, since marriage during iḥrām is not permitted. But Maymūnah's own account, and the unanimous scholarly position, holds that the contract was concluded only after his iḥrām had ended, in the state of ḥill; Ibn ʿAbbās's wording is best understood as an honest imprecision rather than a description of the actual sequence.

❧A REQUEST DENIED, AND A MARRIAGE AT SARIF

By the third day, Quraysh insisted the treaty's time limit had run out. The Prophet ﷺ tried gently to extend his stay, offering to host a wedding feast the following day so they might join him, but Quraysh refused any further delay, and he honored the agreement and departed without incident, his marriage not yet consummated. That night the party camped at Sarif, a short distance outside Mecca, and it was there that the marriage was consummated. In a striking coincidence, Maymūnah, Maymūnah bint al-Ḥārith, later died at that same spot on a subsequent journey to Mecca, in 61 AH, and is buried there to this day: married and buried at the very same place.